Premarital sexual opinions of undergraduate students at a midwestern university

Opinionnaires were distributed to 130 single, undergraduate students in two Human Development courses offered at a midwestern university to elicit opinions concerning premarital sexual behaviors. Test of null hypotheses were utilized to determine whether or not there were statistically significant differences between the opinions of fraternity members and non-fraternity members; sorority members and non-sorority members; males and females; religious and non-religious subjects; subjects enrolled for the day-time course and subjects enrolled for the night-time class; subjects who were born and raised in a rural area and those born and raised in an urban area; and finally among subjects belonging to the three different socio-economic groups. The results indicate that fraternity membership and non-fraternity membership, sorority membership and non-sorority membership; day-time and night-time enrollment, place of birth and residence and socio-economic status did not predict the subjects' opinions concerning premarital sex. Statistically significant differences, however, were found between the opinions of males and those of females. In addition, significant differences were found between the opinions concerning premarital sexual behaviors of religious and non-religious subjects. Differences for both these variables were found to be significant at the .001 level.